Personal Finance

Money is the primary target for criminals, more valuable than your data. When using any forms of digital assets, it's more important than ever to take precautionary steps to protect yourself from falling victim.

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Done?	Advice	Level	Details
Ignore	Sign up for fraud alerts and credit monitoring	Essential	Enable fraud alerts and credit monitoring through Experian, TransUnion, Equifax, or your local credit score provider to be alerted of suspicious activity: you should get an alert each time somebody requests your credit history, which lists your accounts at different banks and their financial state over time.
Ignore	Request a credit freeze	Essential	Prevent unauthorized credit inquiries by freezing your credit through Experian, TransUnion, Equifax, or your local credit score provider.
Ignore	Diversify your assets	Essential	Don’t keep all your funds in one wallet, account, or bank. Use multiple wallets or accounts to diversify risk; if one is compromised, you won’t lose everything. There are many ways and tools to keep your personal finances in order, and they will help you keep track of your accounts. Consider having a scheme like this: a software wallet in browser for tiny amounts, donations etc; a hardware wallet for the assets you would like to access periodically; a 'cold' paper wallet for long-term storage.
Ignore	Use virtual cards	Essential	Utilize virtual card numbers for online transactions to protect your real banking details. Services like Privacy.com (US-only) offer such features. Check tariffs of your local banks: it may be possible to issue new cards just on your smartphone. Consider using a credit card with zero credit limit if you are renting a car or other vehicle.
Ignore	Use a secret phone number for your primary bank	Essential	Phone numbers should not be used for authentication, yet they are still a common method banks use. Make sure you don't register your public phone number with the bank where you keep most of your assets. Utilize all advice from Authentication and Mobile Devices sections for your payment accounts.
Ignore	Use cryptocurrencies wisely	Essential	Opt for cryptocurrencies for international transactions to keep fees low and store share of your assets for diversification. However, use cryptocurrencies wisely: everything is recorded on a public blockchain and analyzed, so your activity can reveal your identity. Cryptocurrencies are not completely anonymous.
Ignore	Store cryptocurrencies securely	Essential	Only store cryptocurrencies in non-custodial wallets. For accounts holding more than $1000, use offline wallet generation and hardware wallets like Trezor with a proper backup. Learn what a multi-sig wallet is; when your friends or colleagues use crypto, wallets like Safe or Argent provide you with an ultimate level of security for crypto assets and reliable recovery methods.
Ignore	Backup seed words and private keys	Essential	Backup your wallet recovery phrases, private keys, and important account details on physical media. Write down, use key separation techniques like Shamir's secret sharing to break a secret into multiple shards. Lord Voldemort did it (kind of), you should do it too.
Ignore	Use cash for local transactions	Optional	Pay with cash for local and everyday purchases to avoid financial profiling. Remember that all affiliate and cashback programs are tracking you to sell your data.
Ignore	Buy cryptocurrencies anonymously	Optional	Purchase cryptocurrencies without linking to your identity through services like Bisq, or Crypto ATMs. Use separate wallets for different purposes: until you send transactions between them it's extremely hard to link different wallets to one identity.
Ignore	Learn about coin tumblers/mixers	Advanced	Coin tumblers are services designed to enhance the privacy of cryptocurrency transactions. They work by pooling together funds from multiple users and then redistributing them, thereby breaking the direct link between the source and destination of the coins that can be traced through blockchain. While these mixers are valuable for protecting user privacy, they have also attracted attention from regulators and law enforcement due to their potential misuse in money laundering and other illicit activities. You should be aware of both the privacy benefits and the legal implications of using such services. Bitcoin mixers use techniques such as CoinJoin, where multiple transactions are combined into one, making it harder to trace individual coin histories. On Ethereum, decentralized mixing services like Tornado Cash use smart contracts to mix ETH and ERC-20 tokens, effectively obfuscating transaction trails. Be cautious, since such services could be illegal in your location, and their usage faces regulatory scrutiny.
Ignore	Use an alias for online shopping	Advanced	For online purchases, consider using a fake identity with a forwarding email address, virtual phone number, and secure delivery methods (such as PO Boxes, forwarding addresses, or local pickup locations) to protect your identity and avoid linking purchases directly to you.